Women's Work

Topic for January 2009

Happy New Year!  The topic for January will be freestyle.  Enjoy!

Celebrating New Year's Eve

Growing up I always celebrated New Year's Eve with my cousins. It was always fun and I never had to worry about what to do that night. I don't remember when or why we decided not to celebrate together anymore -- probably when we were teenagers and wanted to party with our friends. Little did I know that this wouldn't always be so easy or enjoyable. I distinctly remember one night of frantic driving around with a bunch of people trying to find a party we could crash. That must have been before we realized that we don't really need a party, but just each others company. We did that a couple of years ago when a few of us where at our parents' places for the holidays anyway, and it was great! Of course, as teenagers we were around each other all the time, whereas now just seeing each other is a celebration right there.

There were many other New Year's Eves of stressing out about what to do for this special night. Once I was on vacation with my parents, and no restaurant would take families with kids. I think we ended up in our hotel room with a couple of chocolate bars. The millennium proved to be equally low-key -- we were on vacation again, but this time we had at least a decent dinner. But nothing else was going on where we were, so we were in bed shortly after midnight. But by then I had learned to care less. The best lesson was one year when it ended up being just me and a good friend. I don't remember why it was just the two of us, if we hadn't tried to plan anything, but in the end we went to a club, danced for a few hours, went out around midnight to watch the fireworks, danced some more and went home around 3am. We had a blast, mainly because we didn't expect this to be the party of the year I guess.

I also have fond memories of being snowed in with a boyfriend once. There was simply no way we could have gone anywhere, all the pressure of this having to be a special night was off, and we still had a good time!

Then there was the year when I had three roommates and in the morning of the 31st we discovered that none of us had bothered to make any plans, so we celebrated together and it was great! We cooked together, played board games, and even went to a bar later on.

Last year was another good example of trying too hard for a special night and failing completely. My parents were visiting and we went to a fancy restaurant. After just two courses my father got violently ill and had to go home -- luckily my place was just across the street. My mother and I ended up finishing dinner, and by the end we were able to laugh about it (in spite or because of having to pay the full price even though my poor father hardly ate anything).

This year I ended up making no plans again. I've been traveling on and off for the past six weeks (being on at least one plane every weekend), I saw lots of friends and family and had lots of special nights and celebrations. There simply is nothing I could have planned for tonight that could have surpassed these past weeks. So I will just head over to a friend's place for some cheese fondue. We might go out later, but the weather is yucky and truth be told: if I end up at home alone before midnight, I won't be disappointed at all! New Year's Eve only has to be as special as you want it to be -- and this year I really don't care at all...

Happy New Year!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Not.

I look with bewilderment at those who enjoy the Christmas season. 

While everyone else was sitting around their trees sipping hot chocolate, I was busy being shuttled from household to household so as meet the court-mandated orders of visitation: Christmas Eve here, Christmas Day there, and not a second too long anywhere. 

Now I'm an adult, of course, and I can choose which parent I will spend my time with, and it should be easier. We are all rational, thinking people who can reason and read calendars and it should be simple to plan and organize. 

But it's not. Not for me. 

Old resentments never die, apparently. 

Mama gets her feelings hurt if I spend more time with Daddy than I do with her, so when she offers the suggestion that perhaps I should alternate Christmases between the two of them, I laugh out loud. If I'm at his house and she knows it, she thinks of a question she needs answered urgently and has my brother call me. Or at least she used to; now he's old enough to refuse to go along with that nonsense. 

So I just don't go to either. Instead, I stay home, amid her protestations that I shouldn't have Christmas breakfast alone, that I should go to Daddy's, since I live closer to him by a good hour and a half, but that's exactly what usually happens – I wake up when I wake up on Christmas morning and have a cup of coffee and a bowl cereal with berries, just like it's any other Tuesday. 

I'd like it not to be this way, but it is what it is, and I'm just not up for this battle again.

But anyway, Christmas to me signals a season of too much rushing around, too much trying to be too many places at one time, too many cars trying to be in one place at one time, too much tape. 

What I love about Christmas is making my list of special people and then going shopping during the last hour or so that my special stores are open, when no one else is there, and piddling around and finding the exact right thing for each person. And then I love bringing those things home and spreading them around me and knowing how much they will love what I have found for them. 

Mostly, Christmas is something I get through, wait through, live through, anticipate the end of. I rush, rush, rush until the point where I just have to announce to myself that it's time to stop and accept that whatever's not done won't be done. 

But hey! My birthday's less than month after Christmas, and I love celebrating that, because I always pick where it's going to be and what kind of cake I'm having and who's invited. And I have the best friends. 

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Much pleasure doth thou bring me!

For every year the Christmas tree, Brings to us all both joy and glee.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, Much pleasure doth thou bring me!

 

In my house, the official start of the Christmas season is not the first of December, or the day after Thanksgiving; it’s whenever we put the Christmas tree up.  Ours is a Christmas-loving household.  My husband goes at the season with an unadulterated glee that knows no bounds and I am swept merrily along.

 

The Christmas tree is maybe my favorite part of the holiday.  The last few years we’ve bought a real tree from the charity Christmas tree lot in our neighborhood.  Each year we debate just going to Home Depot for a cheaper tree, but I can’t resist the joy of wandering among a forest of trees in the elementary school parking lot, those round lights that are so peculiar to Christmas tree lots dangling above.  So what if their trees are $20 more expensive?

 

I think it is lovely when Christmas trees have a theme, or are all done up in a certain color or style, but ours is decidedly not one of those.  It’s a chaos of ornaments from our families, our respective childhoods, from our lives before we met each other, souvenir ornaments from the trips we’ve taken together, and those random ones that make you laugh each year when you unwrap them from the tissue paper.  Our tree décor is really the story of our lives, so far, and wackily representative of our histories both apart and together.  Here are a few of my favorites and the stories behind them:

 

 

The Dickie Ball

This is the most basic kid-made ornament ever – a large Styrofoam ball, a pipe cleaner hook, and “DICKIE” (my husband’s childhood nickname) written in glitter across the front. Ours is actually a recent replica, as the original Dickie Ball resides with my mother-in-law in Arizona.  Richard has given up trying to hide it around the back of the tree and now just hands it over to me to be placed in a prominent spot for the best viewing potential.  Lucky for him, he can counter by displaying my own childhood craft project, the Christmas Ghost.

 

 

The Christmas Ghost

This ornament came out of a project at my elementary school where we were making colonial-style dolls:  One square of fabric, cross-stitched eyes and mouth, and a puff of fiber-fill for the head, gathered around the “neck” with a ribbon to make a simple doll.  I made my own for our family tree, but lacking the patience to cross-stitch the eyes I drew the x’s on with blue marker.  The resulting ornament looks more like the victim of a hanging then a holiday decoration, but my mother cherished it and hung it up every year.  She handed it over to us only after extracting the promise that it would always go on the tree (not in a box as would be my preference).

 

The Christmas Monkey

For the first 5 years of our relationship, this was the star at the top of our tree, not because we were making a statement about Darwin vs. religion but because we realized, when decorating our first tree together, that neither of us had a star for the top.  The monkey was the most ridiculous star-substitute we could think of, so up it went and there it stayed for years, until last Christmas. When Richard’s grandmother became very ill last December, we replaced the monkey star with a circle of her crocheted angels.

Grandma Angels

Richard’s grandma Mary was a talented crocheter and we have a wealth of her angels and stars on our tree, finely knit out of thin white yarn, flattened and stiffened so they hang lightly on the tips of the boughs.  Her needlework is amazing – in addition to the angels and stars, we have lacily-detailed doilies and a couple wooly warm blankets.  She passed away last Christmas Day at the age of 97.  She was the sort of person who brought happiness to everyone who knew her, and her angels now dance lightly around the top of our tree.  They remind us not only of the joy, wonder and symbolic "beginning" of the Christmas story, but of a woman who embraced and shared joy and wonder through her long life.  That, I think, is truly something to celebrate.

 

May the holidays bring you all both joy and glee!

Spontaneous Celebration

Organic, spontaneous and jubilant celebration is my favorite kind of celebration. I've been to lovely weddings, solemn graduations, and victorious award ceremonies, but when I think of celebration, it contains an element of genuine elation that is difficult to stage. 

This typically manifests itself in children who find themselves gathered in large groups and begin to play. My cats also display unabashed enthusiasm when the receive a new toy or empty box or pile of crumpled newspaper. I have felt it after periods of hard work when I persevered despite thinking I might fail. The discovery one morning that my garden actually began to look cohesive instead of assorted plants that landed in the ground made me want to take the day off of work and enjoy the work. Finding acquaintances who out of the blue recite the next line of a favorite poem makes me feel warm and happy. That quiet glow or the sudden urge to stop and savor what just happened is my favorite kind of celebration.

There are some new homeowners on my block. They have the tiny, modest sort of house that is ubiquitous in our neighborhood. Their Christmas decorations show exuberance and joy. When they ran a line of Christmas lights for each strip of siding, I snickered. It's been a cynical year. Several days later though, the shrubs were completely covered with lights. I started to go out of my way to drive by the house to see what would happen next.  Soon, they crawled up the huge, ancient elm tree and covered it in lights. I was intrigued. The latest addition is a web of lights covering the grass. I don't know where they could possibly put another light or whether their circuit breakers can handle it. Still, I enjoy seeing people enjoying their house and the lights of Christmastime. It is pure delight and exuberance. And I'll be driving by tomorrow night to find out if they have managed to take this celebration any further.

A Carol

Celebration – the word swings as I say it, as if it were the peal of a bell. The first part is metallic, tinny, the bell struck, and the last, the weight of the note, the heaviness of the bell as it sways.

From the rooftop terrace of the house I lived in, once upon a time, in Spain, you could see at least six bell towers – church towers, but once mosque towers, when the south of Spain was ruled by Moors. The churches had been mosques, the mosques had been churches, the churches had been Roman temples. Religion, as old as the stones and the columns, layered together like the notes of a song. Bells remind me of those bell towers, bells chiming from every part of the city, no longer calling you to prayer, but still calling.

When we celebrate, we give thanks, don't we? Thanks for what we have, what we've been given. Mostly for the gifts we feel we don't deserve, did nothing to merit, have a hard time believing were blessings for us, for always, for keeps.

I collect nativities – okay, collect, I have three. One traditional, expected, Mary in blue, three kings, a shepherd, a camel. One is unexpected, hand-painted, South American (I guess Peru, but I don't know, I bought it secondhand), and the characters nut brown instead of lily white, lots of little sheep, and Mary has a crown of stars. The third is tacky, but I still love it – it's plastic, it lights up, and it sits out in my lawn. Ah, America, I hear you singing, and you are singing about decorating your house with lights for Christmas, hallelujah. I collect them because I love the story of Jesus' birth. The flight from Herod, the stay in the manger, the guiding star in the heavens, the arrival of the three Magi. I know it so well, I feel as though I can smell the animals who shared the shelter, hear the baby's newborn cry, hear the kings whispering.

A story is a calling, in a way, a thing that calls you back to where you've been before, or to a new place, when you didn't know you were going. Or maybe you did, but you didn't believe it.

The peal of the bells would reverberate, echo from the buildings, a multitude of ringing, carrying strong voices singing out over the city, a celebration, for always, for keeps.

Celebration in the House of Mouse

I promise this blog will be short.  PROMISE!!  I had already written my blog for this month, so just this once, I'll be posting two.  I'm finally home after an incredible long weekend in Orlando...Disney World, to be exact, accompanying my chess-playing son to the Grades National Chess Championship.  Even before I knew how the weekend was going to unfold, I felt compelled to write about it.  Why?  Because the Universe came knocking in the form of signs. You think I jest, but no: road signs everywhere pointed me toward a Celebration....literally!  Around every bend, I saw a new sign:  Next Left to Celebration Parkway.  Next Exit to Celebration (which, if you don’t know, is a meticulously over-planned Disney community that is pristine, but juiceless).  And of course, the tournament itself was held at the Coronado Springs hotel in Disney World, the Happiest Place on Earth.  Disney music is piped into the bathrooms.  Waffles are in the shape of Mickey Mouse.  The staff is annoyingly perky.  It’s enough to drive you Disney-doofy, especially if you’re a non-believer in all things Mouse, as I am.

 

But the signs were not only literal...they truly were a gift from the Universe.  After the dust settled, and the smoke cleared, my son emerged as the National seventh grade co-champion!!  He took First Place based on a series of complex calculations known as tie-breakers.   So, yeah...last night, I confess, we got down and dirty with the Mouse; we celebrated hard, slamming back Slurpees and chocolate at an alarming rate.  But in this case, I think even Old Walt would approve.

A Reason to Celebrate

When I was pregnant with my first son, I have to admit that my feelings were mixed.  Or maybe ambivalent is a better way to describe it.  I’d never been the nurturing type.  Baby lust had never occupied any space inside my head, which was crammed instead with dreams of adventure, purpose, and a meaningful career. I had a well-paying job that enabled me to travel all over the country.  I was still unsure about how I felt about living in Florida indefinitely.  No, it was not the perfect moment for a pregnancy, but I was cautiously happy about my pregnant state.

Physically, pregnancy was easy for me: no morning sickness, no nausea, no cravings.  The hardest part was giving up caffeine.  But in general, the months flowed smoothly.  Checkups were routine.  And so, I arrived for my nineteen-week ultrasound in an untroubled frame of mind.

The technician, my husband, and I chattered happily as she oiled my belly and began scanning.  “There’s the heart...”  “Look at those fingers and toes...!”   “No, PLEASE don’t tell us the sex...we want it to be a surprise...”  And suddenly...silence.  The technician scanned the same area several times, then quickly excused herself.  The doctor walked in moments later.  We tensed, just a little.  The doctor sat down and explained that they’d noticed something a bit unusual.  There were spots on the baby’s brain.  Spots??  What did that mean?  He assured us that it probably meant nothing, but he wanted a high-resolution ultrasound immediately, just to be safe.  Alarm bells went off: Why the rush if it was nothing serious?

 

The second ultrasound confirmed the first: Spots. Again...what did that mean?   Excruciating details spilled forth.  Spots (abnormal growths) could mean one of several things: (1) absolutely nothing (they would simply be absorbed); (2) mild Down’s syndrome; (3) severe Down’s syndrome; or (4) immediate death upon the baby’s birth.

 

I was too shocked to cry or react.  Death?  Disability?  Throughout my pregnancy, neither possibility had ever crossed my mind.  My practical side took over, blotting out the dangerous emotions threatening to engulf me.  What’s next?  What are our options?  I wanted to approach this as I approached work...calmly, rationally....lay out a plan, execute it well, and all would be fine.

 

But I was not in control; I discovered I had never been in control.  The next step: amniocentesis, which would determine our baby's exact genetic mixture.  It was the first ultrasound that was performed somberly and completely in silence.  I couldn't bear to watch the screen as the needle plunged into my stomach.  My husband later said he actually saw the baby flinch.

  

Before we left the office, the doctor explained that if the baby had severe problems, we might want to consider “terminating the pregnancy.”  If so, we had to decide quickly, before the pregnancy progressed further and everything became even more complicated.  Termination??  Yet another possibility that had never crossed my mind.  This was moving way too fast.  For the first time, I was hit by the enormous gravity of the situation.

 

On the short drive home, the tears finally spilled, slowly at first, and then in a rush.  I pulled over to the side of the road, unable to see, literally blinded by tears.  All of my closely-held emotions finally poured out: enormous guilt over my earlier ambivalence; realization how much this baby meant to me; fear over making a decision that had no right answer.  I shoved my fists into my ribs, trying to still my heart, which was pounding so hard that I thought it was going to burst.

 

The two-week wait for the test results seemed interminable.  I was scheduled to fly to Michigan to work on a project; I went, hoping that keeping busy would keep me sane.  But my emotions had been unleashed and now there was no stopping them.  I cried while I worked, hiding my head in the files; I cried late at night in my hotel room, unable to sleep; I cried when the phone rang and there was no news.  I cried when my baby stirred inside of me, constantly reminding me of his presence.  I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think.  Great washes of fear and guilt and desperation poured out of me.

 

Finally one night, the phone rang with the news I’d been both dreading and desiring.  My husband’s words (and I remember them exactly):  “You’re going to be a great mother...(pause)....to a healthy baby.”

 

I'm sure we had some sort of emotional and blissful discussion after that, but I cannot recall it.  The next thing I remember is standing in the middle of the room, shaky and dazed.  And then...well, I had thought good news would mean the end of tears, but I was wrong.  There were still tears of happiness welling up inside me.  And they fizzed and they shimmered like fine champagne bubbles, percolating to the top, then overflowing - sparkling liquid jewels flowing out of me.  I cried and I cried...welcome, wonderful tears of joy.  There, alone in an unremarkable hotel room, I celebrated as I have never celebrated before, or since...I celebrated second chances, I celebrated renewed hope, I celebrated an optimistic future.

 

I celebrated life.

Learning to Breathe

We begin life breathing instinctively: deep from the belly, chest expanding, lungs filling.  We inhale deeply, luxuriously, correctly. Our early needs are so simple: we want only nourishment of our souls and our bodies.

 

And then we grow up.  We begin to breathe shallowly from the upper chest – quickly and hastily – as if everyday life is so all-encompassing that we no longer have time to luxuriate.  We push and we persevere through our daily routines and our breathing reflects that: rapid and hurried; the bare minimum that will keep us going.

 

Learning to breathe has always been difficult for me.  My early bout with pneumonia left my lungs slightly scarred and at a compromised capacity.  My well-meaning parents never told me about this little detail.  I moved through childhood always wondering what was wrong with me: why I couldn’t run as far as everyone else without gasping for air; why a simple dance routine left me breathless; why I, the first chair clarinetist, could not sustain a phrase nearly as long as the person sitting in last chair.  Though I pushed myself harder and harder, I could not increase my breathing proficiency.  And throughout my struggles, my breathing mirrored my frustration: short and frantic; increasingly frequent, but hollow.

 

My first brush with proper breathing came in college, in the unlikely form of Mr. P., a gnomish, wall-eyed clarinet teacher.  He was a former hippie who had obviously fried a few brain cells; he was new age long before new age was cool.  He would darken the room, light candles, and have us – his students – sit in a circle, breathing deeply, visualizing rainbows.  We snickered self-importantly and self-consciously at his oddball, eccentric teachings.  And because my ability to sustain a phrase didn’t improve markedly, I began to lose faith in his instructions.  And yet...and yet...on rare occasions, I felt a twinge of...something?...stirring within.

 

I abandoned the idea of playing the clarinet seriously shortly thereafter, finally realizing that I would never fully overcome my physical limitations.  I raced through early adulthood like most other young people – eagerly, quickly, somewhat selfishly – and I didn’t think about breathing at all, until my first marriage.  Breathing through my first marriage became harder and harder, until finally I couldn’t breathe at all.  In fact, quite the opposite – I felt as though I were suffocating.  It was time to get out.

 

The next few years were a time for personal growth, healing, and freedom. I moved to Washington, DC, where I constantly roamed the noisy city streets, biked along the Mount Vernon trail, danced all night with my friends.  I was busy, but in some ways, life was simple: I attended graduate school, I worked, I played.  Those were the days when my breath seemed inexhaustible and expansive...a celebration of my independence.

 

When I met my current husband, I packed my bags and left DC behind for a new chapter in Florida.  Florida was a huge adjustment for me.  The unrelenting heat and humidity sat on my chest like a twenty-pound weight.  As much as I loved my husband, sometimes I wondered if I could ever breathe freely in Florida. 

 

And then I became pregnant.

 

Proper breathing is essential when giving birth.  As I puffed my way through Lamaze classes, my old sessions with Mr. P. danced through my head.  Belly out, belly in.  Same concept, different purpose.  When I went into labor, those early lessons abruptly clicked into place.  I could suddenly breathe correctly – deeply, surely, assertively.  This was, after all, a new life entering the world...I wanted to do it right....and so my baby was born on a rising tide of concentrated, focused breaths.

 

Over the next few years – years in which my family grew and my life often threatened to overwhelm me – I not only lost that momentary splendor of proper breathing, I also quickly succumbed to improper everything else: not eating, not sleeping, not caring for myself.  I became frequently ill with multiple bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis, coughing and hacking far into the night, often ending up on the sofa so I wouldn’t disturb my family.  Something had to change.

 

That’s when I discovered yoga, and more importantly, meditation.

 

For the first time in my life, I began breathing consciously – literally and figuratively.  As I sat in lotus, hands resting on my knees, I would close my eyes and feel my belly rise and fall.  With each deep, focused inhalation and exhalation, my mind would become quieter and quieter, until there was only the sound of my breath – my life force – moving through my head.  What had stirred in me long ago rushed back full speed; this time, finally, I was ready to listen.

 

The lessons learned while meditating have slowly crossed over into my everyday life.   I have gained a new awareness of my actions and reactions.  When my breathing becomes shallow and rapid, I recognize a need to step back and – yes! – take a deep breath. I’ve become more accepting of and comfortable with the limitations of my body.  And I especially relish those beautiful moments during yoga or meditation when my breath, my body, and my mind merge as one, and I become momentarily blessed with a state of meditative grace.

 

Learning how to breathe has been my metaphor for learning how to live.

 

A Study in Contrasts

I’m a Korean adoptee, which is something you’d never know about me, especially in print, unless I told you.  I speak, write, think, and act like a typical middle-class, all-American Caucasian, because that’s exactly how I was reared.  Sometimes this causes identity confusion, my being Caucasian American on the inside and Korean on the outside.  I’ll have occasional moments of wondering who and what I really am, but I try not to let these moments define me.

 

I'm part of the first wave of international adoptions that began after the Korean War.  I was abandoned as a baby and found by orphanage workers, who bestowed a Korean name and approximate birth date upon me.  A New Jersey couple eventually chose to adopt me, but it wasn't easy for them.  International adoptions were uncharted territory then; adoptive parents' motives were suspect.  The FBI thoroughly investigated my parents-to-be for almost a year before concluding, albeit reluctantly, that they weren't smuggling in a dreaded Communist-in-the-making.  Meanwhile, I was fighting my own battle: I was stricken with pneumonia so severe that it nearly killed me.  My trip to America was delayed indefinitely.  But then fate stepped in: As my new parents anxiously awaited word of my health and travel readiness, another couple arrived in Korea to learn that their baby had died unexpectedly.  And so I was bundled onto the plane with the grieving couple to distract them on their long flight home; consequently, I arrived in America slightly ahead of schedule, despite my fragile condition.

 

Obviously, I survived my tentative start.  My entire story as an adoptee could fill another whole blog - and then some - so I'll leave that for a different time.  Suffice to say, I ended up relatively happy and whole.

 

I'm Melinda.

 

I'm also Kim Wol-Hee, but no one ever calls me that.

 

Today I live near the east coast of Florida, in a place called Broward County.  Few people have ever heard of Broward County; we're the red-headed stepchild to the more famous (or infamous) counties both north and south.  To our south, there's ultra-hip Miami-Dade, immortalized in pop culture through countless movies, books, and television shows.  To our north, Palm Beach exudes wealth and power, glitter and glamour, Donald Trump excesses and rock star eccentricities.  And Broward, paling in comparison, merely serves as the connector between the two.

 

I make my home in a tidy western Broward suburb, just a tad too far from the beach - a place an urban girl like me never thought I'd be.  Our back yard faces a lake, which sounds romantic until you discover the lake is man-made; it exists for reasons that have nothing to do with beauty or nature.  After you've lived in Florida awhile, you realize that humans have manipulated almost everything in the environment.  It's the ultimate American dream - or nightmare - depending on your perspective.

 

But living on a lake, even a man-made one, has its perks: early in the morning, in the bluish-pink moments between dawn and day, there is a hushed peacefulness that washes over me when I sit on the dock with a cat and a steaming cup of tea, gazing out over the water.  The sounds of nature - from the wind clattering through the palm trees to the twittering birds and the croaking frogs - rise up and jumble together to form a hypnotizing mantra of sorts.  I forget, at least for a moment, that the paradise in which I live is artificially created.

 

I cling to my Northern sensibilities despite overwhelming evidence that I am not leaving Florida anytime soon.  I prefer living with my illusions.  Case in point: I refuse to abandon my beloved hot drinks, even though temperatures hover near 90 degrees nine months out of the year.  As I savor my daily hot teas (or my occasional decadent caramel macchiato), rivulets of sweat drip down my back, mocking my stubbornness.  In stark contrast, my husband, a native Floridian, cannot abide hot liquids of any kind.  Liquids that pass through his system must be frosty cold and heavily iced.  If he is served soup, he’ll carefully pick out and consume anything solid, always foregoing the broth, whereas to me, the steamy hot broth is liquid ambrosia.

 

Speaking of husband, and family...I am blessed to have a family that challenges me, nurtures me, bemuses me, and enriches me.  I’ve been married for over seventeen years – most of them good, some of them trying.  In keeping with my theme of contrasts, of course I married my polar opposite.  In our best moments, we complete and complement each other.  In our more difficult moments...well, let’s just say we wonder how we ever wound up together.  He’s a hands-on sort of person: a pragmatist, a realist, a doer.  He fixes things: cars, bikes, worn out parts of our house.  To prove his love, his first gift to me was to painstakingly detail my car and change its fluids.  On the flip side, I’m a dreamer and idealist who lives inside my head whenever possible: I practice yoga and I meditate; I write, I draw, and I read; I love classical music and ballet and creative, artistic expression.  A well-turned phrase of any kind – musical, written, danced, spoken – has the power to move me to tears.

 

What drew us together, originally, was our mutual appreciation for the built environment, especially historic structures.  He's an architect who prefers creating personal living spaces; therefore, he's chosen the less-lucrative, but more rewarding, path of residential architecture.  I'm an urban planner who loves the intent of my profession, but who's unsure of its practice, at least in Florida, where the focus is on concurrency - something that seems slightly subversive.  Concurrency means that development is welcome, as long as there's enough money set aside for roads and infrastructure...which, to my mind, leads to a vicious cycle of more development.

 

We're parents to three amazing children whose strong individual personalities constantly surprise us.  Our oldest son is 15 and almost ridiculously smart; he's a passionate drummer and a rabid sports enthusiast.  Our middle son is 12; he's a wacky soul with a free spirit, impressive athletic ability, and a surprising gift for playing chess.  And our daughter is 10 going on 20; she's wise beyond her years, bubbly and social, possessing a girly-girl gene that I completely lack.  Like me, our daughter is adopted from Korea, and it is an honor to share this bond with her.  Our household is also home to four cats and one dog, and this year, one exchange student from Thailand.

 

My life philosophy is simple: I believe in karma; I believe in living mindfully and spiritually and purposefully; I believe in the essential goodness of people (to paraphrase Blanche DuBois).  I believe that life's meaning becomes especially clear when a cat is purring on your lap, or when a child is sleeping in your arms, or when dessert is finally on the table, or when someone you love deeply loves you back.  I believe we are here for a mad, glorious purpose, and that there are no real accidents.

 

Yes, it's noisy, crazy, exhilarating, messy, exhausting, and completely wonderful...this journey that I call my life.  I look forward to sharing it with you.